Gender – Page 7 – Taiwan Insight

Gender Politics: Public Views of Women in Politics

21 August 2021 Editor

Written by Timothy S. Rich, Madelynn Einhorn, and Isabel Eliassen. Taiwan’s efforts at gender parity for electoral offices have resulted in a legislature where women currently hold 41.6% of seats. This leaves Taiwan ranked 12th globally, with only one Asian country (Timor-Leste) with similar rates. However, despite the success of President Tsai Ing-wen, the vast majority of executive offices (mayors and magistrates) are still held by men. Gender equality and the rise of women in national politics are common narratives when discussing Taiwanese politics.

The Entangled Histories of Taiwan’s Women’s Movements: A look at Two Pioneering Groups

4 August 2021 Editor

Written by Elizabeth Frost. Much of Taiwan’s impresive progress towards gender equality is thanks to the Taiwanese island’s women’s movement. Two groups that have been instrumental in the post-martial law era Taiwanese women’s movement are Awakening and the Homemakers United Foundation (HUF). The early stages of both groups were similar – Awakening began as a magazine in 1982, and HUF was initially established as the women’s auxiliary of the New Environment magazine in 1987. After the lifting of martial law, the groups were incorporated into independent foundations – Awakening in 1987 and HUF in 1989. Awakening is one of the most influential feminist groups in Taiwan, and HUF is now one of Taiwan’s largest environmental NGOs.

Speaking on Behalf of the State: The Women on the Radio and behind the Loudspeakers during the Cold War

18 May 2021 Editor

Written by Isabelle Cheng. Women have a complicated relationship with the wars waged by the nation-state. Women are the reproducers and boundary ma(r)kers of the nation, so women, notably when they embody the nation’s image, are said to be protected by the state as a reason for going to war. They are also projected as the victims of war when the state loses to its enemy, mainly when the enemy uses rape as a weapon to weaken national morale. On the battlefield, women are used as fighters, porters, carers, entertainers or sex slaves to enhance war fighting capacity physically or mentally. During the two world wars, in the state’s propaganda, women were encouraged to ‘give away’ their husbands and sons to the state or were recruited to fill the vacancies left by men to work in the manufacturing, agricultural or transport sectors. Their homemaking and thrifty cooking were characterised as contributing to war efforts. Regardless of which of these roles they play, they are instrumentalised by the state.

Gay Jouissance: Queering the Representation of Same-sex Desire in 1990s Taiwan Literature

11 May 2021 Editor

Written by Yahia Zhengtang Ma. The last decade of the twentieth century was an especially interesting time in the emergence of ‘tongzhi literature’. This genre consists of literary works that ‘deal with homosexuals and homosexuality’ in Taiwan when queer cinema was introduced to Taiwan via Hong Kong. The 1990s are widely considered the golden age of tongzhi literature, animated by such widely-celebrated literary works by Ta-wei Chi, Chu T’ien-wen, Qiu Miaojin, among many others. However, existing scholarship on this has primarily emphasised the complexity of the tongzhi identity, subjectivity, and discourse around tongzhi, tongxianglian and queer in solely its original Chinese texts through the lens of cultural studies and literary studies.

The Fashioning of Filipino Community in Taiwan: OFW Beauty Pageants in the Era of Social Media

6 April 2021 Editor

Written by Yi-Yu Lai. As an anthropologist who studies Indigenous movements in the Philippine highlands, my experiences of beauty pageants’ are not rare. The beauty pageant has been culturally entrenched in the Philippines and its diasporic communities for many decades. Because these contests are very popular with Filipinos, some Indigenous youth advocates use them as an instrument for cultural activism, empowering participants and attracting those who were previously indifferent to political issues. Nevertheless, the Filipino beauty pageants of Taiwan are quite different from those I previously experienced.

Positioning Taiwanese Queer Cinema on the Global Stage

17 March 2021 Editor

Written by Yi Wang. Significant progress and landmark rulings in advancing LGBTQ+ rights have been made across Asia in recent years, though many challenges and obstacles remain. Asians are among the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the UK, but Asian LGBTQ+ communities are not widely represented. Film reflects society and a medium capable of raising awareness amongst audiences in a direct and accessible way. Queer representation in the media is strongly linked to the wider public’s views on LGBTQ+ communities. I founded Queer East to amplify the voices of under-represented queer Asian and diasporic communities.

« 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 12 »